Serendipity does happen, and children will have some fascinating observations suddenly all on their own. But while they may be curious, they may not know that there's something to be curious at. Contriving a situation to foster that can help, perhaps.

I really loved his note about Dima who asked everyone to swap chairs around. The group had one more person than there were chairs, yet with each shuffling he was bewildered to find they were still short one chair. The child wasn't dumb, and in fact is occasionally clever, but this isn't the sort of problem to be curious at - it's baffling. (Though that's not to say Dima didn't reflect on it at a later date - I'm only halfway through.) The fact Dima didn't quite understand the problem is the part of the interesting point being made; something seems off, but Dima didn't understand to dig into it and figure out right then why this situation felt wrong, at least not yet. Indeed, shortly after on page 28 he notes that this sort of misunderstanding could happen to an old person, too, despite their longer lives and observations.

I think part of the lesson here is that the lessons don't even really stimulate curiosity. Rather, it gives the children more information, more opportunities to have that special serendipitous 'aha!' moment. To your point, it's more akin to bringing the child to a curious place and letting them do their natural thing, rather than foisting stimulation onto them.

I think his point is that we need to work hard to avoid discouraging curiosity. Often it is replaced with rote memorization or knowing things because an authority figure says it is so.

This is particularly true in math, as it is presented in many schools.

Math is a weird topic. It can be completely wrong when teachers don't understand maths, and even with teachers that do convey the goal and added values of math, it's still off to me. The algorithms are too complex and learned without any real clues (you basically program pupils as biological Turing Machines / Arithmetic Units.. very sad).

Think of it as being a steward vs an agitator.

Kids are curious out of the box, but if you gently guide them, they are capable of asking amazing questions and understanding things that will blow you away. My kindergarten nephew and my two year old inspire me this way.